Miria's Illusion
by rafaell
Summary: He took her into their ranks, not because it was a sane idea, nor was it ideal, but the armies to the west and the south are growing and she was tolerably appealing as an awakened being. Switched to M, for mature content.
1. Chapter 1 miria and rigardo

Title: **Miria's Illusion.**

Rating:** PG-13** (slightly safe, save for some implied sexuality)

Pairing: **Rigardo/Miria**

Summary: He took her into their ranks, not because it was a sane idea, nor was it ideal, but the armies to the west and the south are growing and she was tolerably appealing as an awakened being.

Warning: slight Non-con.

* * *

Rigardo contemplates the future. One that's not riddled with incompetent soldiers such as his own followers—those armies of awakened beings who aren't worth their salt—but he's generous, he thinks.

After all this is his army. Not Easley's. He can't stand how he's relegated to the 2nd rank, among them. Not that he minds, bowing before the Silver King, in his human form. He doesn't mind when he's thinking about what lies ahead.

He even takes the time to relax under the winter storm. Bitingly cold to a human's flesh, but he only feels the cool touch that breathes through his fur. He's transformed back to his weaker form. And even in this transformation, he's formidable.

There's the matter of one woman who he has kept as one of them. Awakened Miria, the former captain of the Organization, and while he would balk at such a messy affair that a being so beneath him would join their ranks, he has not been easy about her presence.

Their house, the great big house that storms up the hill, reaching the wintry white sky keeps them warm, warmer than the cave that Easley keeps with Priscilla. There's that other matter with a boy, the name of Raki, small boy of sixteen? Or fifteen, he does not know. He does not care, but it's another matter in which he cannot grasp, except that whatever Priscilla wants, she gets. Easley's little awakening whore.

And there's Miria, who has the yoki power, awakened partly there, her eyes yellow with slits and blond fire, and her phantom powers, would prove great in their army against the south and the west.

He dips his hand into the cold flesh of the dead, sitting like a frosty meal in a bowl, before him on the table. He leans forward and takes the pinkish flesh between his fingers and doesn't chew this time when it enters his mouth. The flesh is good, fresh and inviting…and it leaves him feeling more powerful each time.

He hears the door to his connecting room. It is her. She isn't a claymore awakened that would be reduced to tears, not this one. Though, not many claymores are like that. He ignores the noise, for a moment to enjoy his fare. The rest is cold. There's no need for heaters or fires in this place. The storm rages like a thousand bonfires blue and left dead like trampling horses on solid snow. He takes off his jacket, settles it on the back of his chair when he's done with his meal. He even takes a little time to drink the blood that's been left in the goblet. Everything's as fine as any beast of his rank could ever want. Save for the woman in his room. She's not even a proper woman. Even her flesh isn't edible.

The noise has started to slow when he's reached the door to her room. He doesn't knock as he enters. She's a sight, sitting there, bloody, dried now, with her cuts regenerating unhurriedly. She has taken quite a beating earlier. Miria's phantom skills would prove redoubtable and functional. And of all the awakened beings, he's left to oversee her condition and her loyalties. One betrayal and her body would fall like the rest. It's a shame, he thinks.

It's a shame that so many claymores are willing to die like this. Following the Organization like mechanical dolls, lifeless within with varying powers. She just looks at him with a defiant look. Her hair is plastered over her oval face, and her human lips part.

Her hands are tied behind her back, her legs roped viciously around her thighs and ankles. It's a shame really, weakening her like this, when she so obviously wants to rake her fingers over his skin. Part of her wants to rebel and he knows, there's a generous amount that wants to please, obey and this turn of events made him realize it's only because of her revenge.

"I trust you're enjoying yourself?" It was meant to be in jest, as his eyes never betrayed anything but cynicism, and a full of amount of brutal honesty.

"You pompous dog." She spits out between her clenched teeth, "what makes you and your Easley would believe I would join you? Cowards. Tying me up like this."

"Humpf," he maladroitly makes a disgusted noise, and his lightning speed, like Miria's own movements brought him closer to his quarry, "Easley tells me I need a whore like he has one," his fingernail softly rakes her cheek, cutting deep enough to cause a cut, "if he has one, I should have one. But he's not fair is he? He's got a higher ranked awakening whore and I? What should I get but one that is tolerably fair in battle, high ranking no doubt, but you're not insane enough are you?"

"You mean out of my head like Priscilla? Priscilla's lost it, Rigardo, she no longers knows her own mind, and that's why she's higher ranked."

"Those who are too intelligent usually die young, don't they?" He growls low against her porcelain-fine cheek, and he knows she hates this kind of teasing. Rigardo finds it amusing enough to squeeze her waist with his elegant fingers nearly transforming like his beast-were form, the apex of her sex dead to the world.

"Claymore's are a strange breed," he muses aloud, the back of his hand caressing against her cheek, "soft like a human's skin, but inside—" he digs his other hand deeper into her waist, puncturing her enough so that it causes a wound and the blood to flow and seep through her claymore armour. She cries softly, whimpering with pain. He can see it in her eyes, the anger and hate, the disgusted way she swings her fiery eyes towards him.

"Do you find it pleasing that you tie me up here, so you can abuse me to your heart's content?" Miria narrows her eyes, "Go ahead, kill me."

"Why would I want to do that? I would have done so much sooner, but there's time to see your worth." He takes his finger now drenched in her blood and smears it softly against her cheek, "inside you, your flesh smells of fresh human, that part of you that you hadn't given up, and yet, not delicious enough to taste because of the other taint."

"My powers…" She gasps as he takes a dip into her neck, his teeth sinking slow against the jugular, but he does not bite as a blood sucker would do—he grazes his fangs along the skin just so until she's left breathing hard, her chest heaves languid and deep.

When he finishes his task, he leans back to look at her, and he can see the mirror in her eyes, reverting back to her human eyes of pale blue—he can see himself clearly in her eyes—his human form. The straight short dark hair, long sharp bangs, the darkened eyes, straight nose, the surprisingly gentle face, and lastly—the impassive expression he keeps.

"I cannot take you like this, Miria." He tells her sharply, while smoothing his partially transformed fingers down her waist, leaving the blood to dry.

"No." she shakes her head, "No, I don't…" she refuses, but her body responds when he rakes his fingers now furred and sharp with long nails along her armoured body. Soon, she will be aroused, awakened like a moth to a flame.

She knows it's the only way he can take her. Not in human form. Her body is unappealing when she's nude like this, with rivulets of scars and burned marks too fleshy to look upon, but when she's awakened—she's magnificent. He cannot take her with his human form in the same manner. His sex becomes hard without pleasure, and the only pleasure he takes can only be in form of a beast.

And he knows it's the only way his appetites can be appeased fully when he's effusively formed in his lion-like manifestation.

"Miria…" He growls, like a rumbling thunder deep within his chest.

"Rigardo, no..no.."

But she's too weak at this state and the contest of wills begins even in this late of the day.

* * *

-

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	2. Chapter 2 isley and priscilla Awake

**Part I: Isley and Priscilla.**

**Before**:

It's the center of the universe. The North's allies and the teeming amount of vicious beasts, mostly men of ages old, and Isley's the first of their rank, dressed in fine clothes when he's human. But all traces of humanity have been wiped away, many eons ago, and he doesn't even count the long drawn days of his existence. He has taken many lives, and has dined on the entrails of humans, the weak and the strong.

When he was younger, before he turned, he came from a class wealthier than the villagers who kept the bridge to their homes barricaded from Yoma; he decided long ago that he wished nothing more than to live a life of power, and when he first tasted flesh, it gutted him. He decided long ago that if he wanted a life of prominent status that he'd take the North, because the North holds so many secrets. His ever sharpening ecstasy lost within the folds of his melting hot tongue; yet, in the end, he was only a man.

And men, have been prone to exhibit the pleasurable side of their curse, and great blessing. All those things in the past had been what he was, but this is now, and his fingers curl around the woman beneath him, whimpering, moaning a sigh like a hiss of a breathy angel. Her face isn't beautiful, but it's innocent, and her eyes, those soulless eyes, not intelligent are filled with base desires—of need, of want, and of the rich desires of an awakening betwixt her thighs.

He teases her lips when she's done eating her last kill, dined obsessively on her prey, eating quick fast gulps as if she couldn't stop herself. As if it was her last meal. She doesn't want to die, nor does he.

He is always tender with Priscilla. He hasn't always been. When he first met her, she was a tall fearsome creature, with a phallic horn that would have skewered his guts through. But, this way – this way, he can possess her, claim her and master over her.

When in the end, the only way he knew that could defeat Priscilla in every way was through his own masterful intellect. She's been sighing like a calming, soothed little girl, her face the face of a child, pale against the cave's interior—her hands in prayerful position against his lap, and he takes his elegant pale hands along her hair, touching them. He sits there like a stoned statue, listening to her balanced inhalation.

He knows that Raki has come in to bring more firewood. He would have preferred the cold's kiss. But the boy's humanity would not be able to withstand this kind of condition. He watches there, sitting on the cold ground, watches with a silent derision the way Raki bundles the cut up firewood against the slenderness of his chest, dropping them into the slowly dying embers. The boy stirs the fire quickly, causing a blaze, a delicious fiery temperate blaze that heats the cave's interior with a cozening tickle of warmth.

Priscilla stirs, smells the scent of her boy-toy, and struggles to sit up, rubbing her eyes like a child would. Her large eyes, vacant expression first settles on Raki, and she makes a gesture, a whimpering sad gesture, one with a cry of alarm. Raki instantly runs to her side and he's trampled by her possessing arms-- thin yet strong, clinging and clinging, and the tears—they fall like broken diamonds.

Isley feels a tug of jealousy within his breast, but shoves it aside. He tolerates Raki for her, and finds the human quite interesting study, and finds even further use when he sees how Priscilla clings desperately for Raki's body.

Isley isn't a fool; he knows Priscilla clings to Raki because he represents everything she's lost. That tiny piece of hope, of something she doesn't even remember, but her senses tell her something that it's something that's more than her own life. To her, that importance was something that she's mislaid not too long ago. Foolish, foolish powerful Priscilla.

For him, his own loss was an eon ago. Even the North's cold chill could not keep him from remembering, but the silent reminders kept his blood boiling like a creeping promise.

--

**Miria & Rigald:**

His loins hitch; pitches levels up into a feverish tempo, even as his own fangs bear down, the transformation wavers between human and bestial. The dark hum of his own growl, foreign to his own ears, prickle intensely between heat and static—the furred satiny feel of his own skin, now haloed with a swarthy balmy seductive sensation, begins to curl within him. It's so good – this feeling –this between battle and desire, between her legs, between their blood. He even leans into her further, to get more – her muscles ripple between flesh and blood, the manifestation of her bestial form and the wings that span like a dragon's. They rip out from under her body and that's when she screams. It is painful and pleasurable. He knows this. It's sweet to taste her with his mouth against her breast, puncturing against the hard armour.

His shudders pull her tighter into him, as she cries desperately against his ears, sobs silently against his furred cheek—between his human flesh vibrating like a drum against her thighs. The ropes that once bound her now lay in a coiled heap beside the bed's meager sheets, ripped and torn, crumples beneath them.

The soundless arch of her back, the way she moves, with her fingers curling into his hardened flesh, digging deep to cause a deep gash—and as instantly as it severs the skin, it is brought back to normalcy. The way he likes to take her, in his bestial manifestation is when she's down on fours, with her wings for him to grab hold, to grip betwixt his furred and strong fingers. Long nails protrude from each of his fingers, enough to injure and dent, hear the cracks as she wails, but not enough to kill her. Rigardo even snarls viciously as he orgasms, cursing through gritted teeth, growling words of profanity—a guttural snarl until he climaxes, but not before she lets out a ragged scream as he thrusts in a savage motion.

It is over.

Even in the aftermath, the room's just big enough for their manifestations to bloom. Even in the warm glow of their awakening, she reverts slowly back to her human form—an injured lost, wayward claymore under the now human Rigardo. His hair is wet from the sweat, the exertion leaves them ragged and flushed. His fingers are curled in her hair. And for the first time, he's tired. There is a rumble of satisfaction beneath his chest as he moves above her, her body spread out against the broken bed. Her thighs are cut up with slashes and the blood dries quickly, but her regeneration powers aren't as good as his. He looks into her eyes as he sits up slowly, his hands on both sides of her as she stares back.

"You should have killed me, Rigardo." She chokes out; the blood trickling along the side of her lips propels him to flick them away with a soft gesture. With his human thumb. Surprisingly, he is normally not a gentle being, but the aftermath, as it always does, leaves him half exhausted that's coupled with a kind of suffocating kindness. He could...he thinks, get used to this. He feels her attempt to struggle beneath him. Her once hated eyes are too drawn; yet, her body tries to rebel.

"And forgo our experience, Miria?" He gazes at her face, the tired pale blue eyes and the almost drawn look.

"I don't think," she heaves a hollow sigh, "that I could take much more---_so much of this…"_

"If I find great pleasure in it, your cries tell me it does the same. Do you not find it enjoyable?"

"Yes.." she says in great honesty, turning her head, the pain in her eyes sharpen, "but I cannot, _I cannot_ live through so much of this, it's – it's bound to be disastrous. What pleasure could this hold for us if it's such a selfish act each and every time?"

"_Righteous_." He gives her a derisive snort, "righteous. All you claymores so righteous and it doesn't leave your blood—does it?"

"It's wrong."

"Wrong to indulge in the pleasure of your awakened powers? Or wrong with _me_?"

"I'm hungry." She says after a moment, her lips are dry and the blood is gone, "I need something to nourish me."

He understands, and pushes off her. His clothes are torn, so he's left naked above her. She even allows a small blush as she looks at him in his human form. He understands that claymore's have no embarrassment or shame when it comes to any form of nudity. But her obvious flush meant much more.

---

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	3. Chapter 3:hilda and miria

**Miria & Hilda: their past**

---

She's her best friend, in every way. Every possible way. When Miria battles alongside her comrade, there's nothing but synchronized concord; side by side, lean, taut arms rigid as they're holding their swords. Their flowing hair breezes and tangles in the sunlight, together as they feel their backs—warm, solid and once, they spring forward and the Yoma's limbs and guts are strewn all over the decrepit townhomes, crashing into the windows close by, splashing and spitting against the walls and decorating the cobbled streets.

Miria relaxes first, and she hasn't even bothered to use any of her skills—just sword play, teasing the purplish flesh into oblivion—a splatter of internal organs and acidic stench that burns the nostrils. When she fights with Hilda, it's like this suspension of time,--maddeningly slow—prodigious ascension into the infernal nature of their breed. Without cunning, without pretense, and without questions; a simple job that gets done, and there are no victims left to cry this day. She stands beneath the warm sun, and looks across to her friend. Hilda's short straight hair is filled with the glorious guck of the flesh that she stabbed through. She gives her friend a smile, and after a moment they share a kind of tenderness between comrades. Hilda spits, but her eyes sparkle with amusement beneath the glob of purple, pushing the offending pieces away with her pale hands. The remaining fleshy bits fall into the ground with a sploshy noise, and their shoes, which were once shiny, now need to be scrubbed off.

"I think we're done here," Miria tells her, placing her sword behind her back. The sway of the gentle breeze in this warm weather manages to push aside her hair, showing her symbol. It sparkles against the sun—like a warning—like a mirror against the heat.

"Why is it that you never get dirty?" Hilda accuses with a friendly smile, "Look at me, a complete mess! This stuff gets everywhere," she snorts with a flick of her hands on her claymore armour—her skirt looks like a red and purple bruise against the grey-white.

"Do you really want to know?" Miria teases, "Come on, let's report our success and get ourselves some fire in the forest, the sun's going down in a couple hours. We've got a long road ahead of us to the next village."

"More yoma?" Hilda asks, finishing off her task, then proceeds to place her sword away as well. The sound of the blade clinks safely in, and the two walk side by side, their fingers barely touching. Hilda looks almost shyly at Miria, a touch of a smile on her face.

"There's a river up ahead, just east out of this village." Miria offers, barely glancing at the villagers who finally summons their courage to look after the Yoma's defeat. They stare in awe at the two warriors who look barely threatening—delicate looking; yet, there's no doubt of the ferocity of their skills and powers.

Their scruffy partially dirty shoes clink against the cobble stones—the sun's rays are yellow and shining down on their pale heads, warming and promising of better days ahead. Miria is happy. She hopes never—ever to lose Hilda—the sound of her pulse, or what she thinks is a pulse, like a human's heart beating within her breast seems louder in her ears. She looks up at the arch above them as they pass the perimeters of the village. Could it be, she allows herself to breathe, could it be--something significant? And she isn't quite superstitious as she'd like to be. Her smile is lost in thought.

"I could use a bath." Hilda says confidently, reaching out to Miria's hand.

The captain doesn't pull away.

---

**Miria: The Present.**

**--**

She hears him in the other room, while she lies there in the glow of her destructive near awakening—a slow simmering of her blood tries to bubble up within her—a signal that she's healing close to completion. She swallows, staring up at the ceiling which reaches higher like the sky. She hears the steady thudding noise of the winter's snow against the arched roof. It's in the dead of winter, where humans fear to tread outside their protective homes and out into the dark of the forest. There's so much to fear from their world. It's a bad time to be human. Yet, they fear what's worse.

Miria isn't foolish. She too fears she's going to become one of them—an awakened being that completely abandons her humanity. She must not—must not become one—and her memories of Hilda bring her pain—a sharp vicious pain that stabs through her breast. She thought—she had no heart, nothing left when she's in Rigardo's arms. He is, surprisingly kind when he's done with her—but that is to be expected. All that uninhibited energy consuming him like a bonfire and extinguished before it's over.

She hears him, his calculated steps resonate like a low boom into the chamber as he opens and closes the door. He quietly sits by the bed. It's amazing how quiet and soothing his movements are. _Deadly_. Rigardo the Lion King who could stomp the ground, covering miles and miles of land; and, with just the simple roar of his voice manages to shake the tree tops of clinging snow.

Miria doesn't even bother to wipe away the tear that's been suspended down her cheek, glistening. He reaches over and wipes it away with his thumb, "Still in tears? I thought you'd be a little stronger than that. After all this time?"

She does not tell him it's because of Hilda. She doesn't want to alarm him or tell him such things, but instead grabs hold of his finger with a firm grip—her eyes scan his—and Miria does the most perverse thing she's ever done in his company. His finger is being drawn inside her hot mouth, her tongue plays along the roughened surface of his human skin, probing. He watches her warily –his eyes like pointed steely dark pin-points of inhuman profundity which takes on a kind of feral gleam. It's darkness and brutality he understands, despite his gentle look—despite the kindness in his face, or the civility he has honed to allow others to see him. She thinks, after all this time with Rigardo—she knows and perhaps, understands him better than anyone else. Maybe, much more than Isley does. It is why she slowly sucks his finger like a cruel caress.

He pulls his hand away quickly, as if burned. She manages to sit up, her energy coming back in full force. Her hair is tangled from the previous exercise.

"What's the matter, Rigardo? Afraid?"

"Of what?" He says; the low growl beneath his chest is unmistakable.

They stare at each other for a few more moments—a captain of female breed of claymore and the commander of the armies of the male awakened-- measuring one another. Whilst one is most definitely the stronger- _more powerful_, she knows that if she uses her intelligence that she's been gifted and cursed with, she could break his ferocious temperament. If indeed that is ever possible. Some beasts, she realizes can _never ever_ be tamed. And she's afraid, this one, in particular would give no quarter in the matter. It's too bad--because once he lowers his guard with her, like Priscilla does with Isley, she would find his weak spot and take his head. But, he's too clever for that. _Much much too clever_. His downfall, would have to be his _arrogance._

Finally, after what seems a perpetual time, he offers her an apple.

"You were hungry, were you not?" the green fruit tumbles onto the bed beside her until it bumps against her hip.

"Why, yes." Miria gives him a pointed look—she wants it to be filled with unambiguous disparagement. She brings the apple to her pale pink lips and bites into the offered apple. It fills her hunger soon as she finishes off the rest.

"You're not going to tie me up again are you?"

"I would rather not." Rigardo tells her as he leans back against the chair, "I think you would try to do something quite foolish, in all honesty. Because, you would rather die than be allied with us."

"Or maybe I do like it here." Miria's eyes takes in his new clothes, the other he was wearing earlier had been discarded. Now, he's wearing a similar pair of pants with the boots and a buttoned up thick long sleeved shirt. She wonders why he bothers. He should go completely naked. But, she wagers—the villagers would not like that one bit. Except, perhaps the females, and the appreciative male or two. Rigardo's human form, though on average tall and lean, is muscular and fit, and there's nothing lack of what he possesses in every way possible. She may be a claymore, but she hasn't forgotten what it's like to be human. She has no question to how his lack of humanity propels him to be who he is.

"I doubt it. The only thing you like is what I do to you." He says this in a low, seductive voice, sounding quite sure of himself. It is—she muses, quite interesting to listen to. He is not normally the seducing type, nor is he anything but the pure example of civility and politeness. Until, he releases his bestial side. Which, to many before her has never lived to tell—at least not within a safe distance. Rigardo was and is a formidable being of colossal yoki energy. She realizes even as she's within his company that he has been keeping his own awakening in check—Miria does not know why, but if he were to have fully unleash his powers into her—_she would not,_ she silently acknowledges, quite long before she met him--survive it.

"Anyone could do the same to me and I would feel exactly how you make me feel." She challenges, her eyes now turning grey like stone.

"I doubt it."

"Your overblown pomposity knows no bounds, Rigardo."

"It appears," he says in a languid manner, looking over at the tattered rope beside her, "that you may need a new set of ropes."

He stands up, looks down at her, and how it must rankle his nature, she thinks. That he's attracted to her in some odd way, or maybe it is just as he had told her—that Isley has indicated that he needs an awakened whore.

The day she turns to a fully awakened being and never go back. That once she's there, there will be a point of no return. She's intelligent enough, to control it. Even as her memory of Hilda plagues her.

"Fine." She says in a whisper, "are you going to leave me here then?" her eyes flutter close. And she feels instead the sharp pain in her wrist as Rigardo pulls her up against him.

"No, you're coming with me." He voice, unexpectedly tempers and lowers, his lips close to her parted mouth.

----

--


	4. Chapter 4: foreplay

"Show me, Miria. Go on." Rigardo stands in an all too comfortable stance, ankle deep in snow, boots disappearing within the white fluffy cold blanket. The chill that's reached below temperature status doesn't even make him wince. It is not even a distraction; the white specks of falling ice ornaments his dark hair, instantly melting in seconds. His body exudes warmth that only she understands. She stands before him—not five feet away with her own sword steady in her hands.

"I'll take it easy on you." Rigardo chuckles enigmatically, lowering his chin—dark bangs obscuring his eyes. Yet, she still sees the twinkle of amusement. She clamps down on her teeth, tightened her lips to a firm line. Her body is refreshed and replenished, even after their previous short excursion. It must be this very reason why he decides to take her here: to tire her; to exhaust her beyond her regenerative powers.

"I'd rather you didn't so much." Miria disputes, "You can go a level up, if that pleases _you."_

"I'm not afraid that you'll find a weak spot." The Lion King says in a hushed whisper. Behind them, their forest house stands majestically tall on top of the hill they stand upon; it triumphs the wintry sky, where the snow falls endlessly. A light—the candle by the window flickers like a teasing welcoming harbinger.

"Of course not." Miria moves her head a little, her pastel eyes narrows.

"I _don't_ have a weak spot."

Miria speaks not a word. She tries not to cater to his phenomenal ego much. And this is why she refuses to be, even in the past—to be with men such as he. The Organization, though they are filled with males, she could scarcely tolerate. But she didn't have to live with them. She only took orders and her cause, to keep humans safe—safe from Rigardo and his kind, is more than enough to keep her breathing.

She has never seen battle without his lion-like transformation. Nor does she think it's any less terrifying. Despite his calm and easy-on-the-eyes countenance, he is still the Lion King—and as she steps forward to land a blow, straight down like a arching projectile—downward like a unruly belt of the bitingly harsh wind—_he avoids it_. It is a slight movement, barely noticeable.

His eyes are sparkling in mischievousness, turns his gentle profile to the falling snow, "Come on, Miria, I don't have to tell you twice." And instantly, he's there, right against her, gripping her wrist downward like a painful vise-grip, until the tip end of her blade is sunk deep into the snow, "I want to see your _worth."_

"Don't toy with me, Rigardo." She snarls against him, uncomfortable with his nearness all of a sudden—the snow falls around them like an encouraging unguent—his heat like a fire blazing against her skin. Miria instinctly leans into him, and he is left with an awkward surprise as she swings wide and arches the blade against his torso.

He is pushed away by a hair's breadth, hardly an inch away, dodges it as he ducks aside. But the force Miria places in her swing took much effort, and she is left with a bubbling anger, clenches her teeth against the snow that falls to obscure his features, and she is left alone there.

"Rigardo!" Miria yells, swivels around, and feels his power close. She can't read his yoki movements like some of the claymores, not like this. _Not like this_. But she can—she can sense the level of power he emits; it is sometimes, like a flicker of a time-bomb. It would tear her in two, if he chooses. In an instant, he is behind her, she mirages out of sight.

It doesn't take her much effort to use her powers when he's clearly playing with her. Like a cat does to a mouse, and it rankles her to no end, "Damn you, Rigardo!" She steps out of the shadow of the trees, having phantomed herself into the background, deep within the shadows. He stands like a lone soldier, innocent in appearance and darkly seductive in the night's radiance. He even affords a small smile for her.

"All right. I can tell you are in full strength. If I fight you with all of my human power—.." even that makes him scoff, "then you are free of my indulgences."

She closes her eyes for a moment, "I truly despise you."

Even when she opens her eyes, she notices that he pauses. The darkening burgeoning look in his eyes tells her he is displeased with her candor.

"Did you think otherwise?" She tells him, as if to sour things between them further. As if the rift between them isn't enough.

"I'm not foolish to think you would love me."

Miria blinks, "love?"

"Yes, quite a foolish notion." He folds his arms, then sighs, "Love, cherish, obsess, desire, whatever it is humans like to revel in? Love? Besides, I hold no love for claymores, or anything else…"

"But yourself." She offers, tries to cloak her impish scornful smile, but she is not very good at hiding such candid emotions. Her powers, however--are another matter.

"You are truly _human."_ He chuckles, as if it surprises him that she is this way.

"Claymores cling to their humanity, Rigardo, and that is why I shall _never_ willfully awaken to the fullest."

"Even if it makes you scream for _more_?"

Miria bristles, holds up her sword, facing him with her legs apart. They don't even notice that the snow has stopped falling.

"I'm in the mood to land a blow to your head, Rigardo." She sends him a sharp half smile, lifting the corners of her lip.

"Touch me, here." He tells her with his hand over his chest--where his heart would have been--if not, she thinks, hardened by the power, "and you may have anything you wish."

"Even my freedom?"

He pauses. And she sees that he is too confident. "Yes."

----

**Rigald & Easley:**

His Silver-eyed Lion King; his second in command. The only thing that makes him weak, which to Rigardo's detriment is his overzealous tyrannical power; though, he has to conclude it is also which makes him a prevailing adversary. Irony is that. And he is stronger than all of his armies combined. The men who had awakened after him, those who were created in the cast of the first vestiges of the Organization's plans—to prolong harmony, to keep humans from dying out; yet, it is this that makes the rebellion between his kind and those who keep the 'peace.'

He offers his partner a drink he brought along—a deep bowled cask filled with the last hunt of peripatetic humans. It is all Priscilla's fault really. She gets so very hungry. And because he himself is not thirsty. He hasn't been in awhile, and he wonders at his own sanity. Perhaps, it is because of his continued travel with the boy Raki; or, the consuming demonstrative nature of Priscilla's; her despondent cries at night; her warm body pressed up to his, lips wet with blood and sweat, sucking at his nape—licking hotly at his naked muscled arms, susceptible under her ever growing curiosity. He even gives her a silent congratulation on making him shudder. She is, forever, it would seem stuck between him and the human. Between her mumbling words which always are about her family; a recurrent keepsake that he—sometimes wishes would be shut out forever from his mind. It is that, which keeps her mind child-like, in a stuck suspension of time that's long been gone.

"No, I'm not thirsty," Rigardo tells him, eyeing the drink filled with human's blood. It's fresh, recently killed, before the blood turns to a dark thickened colour, like the slow swirl of oil devoid of its usual smell.

"Pity, for I find no love for this tonight." Isley admits, then raises his eyes from the cup sitting on the table between them, to his second in commander, "How fares your Claymore?"

"As good as it'll ever be."

"Which means, you're not progressing much further with her compliance?" Isley taps his graceful lean fingers on the table, his long light hair looks bleached inside this house, he leans leisurely back against the chair.

Rigardo is silent.

Isley wonders too, if the Lion King's tongue hides within, shuts close between those human lips, preventing words that even he, is not used to hearing: the words of failure.

"Well then, how fares the other more gratifying task? Have you accomplished that matter?"

"It is," Rigardo manages to say, with a stretched torn sigh, bringing his hand in slight agitated shrug to swipe his long bangs gone from his disparaging eyes, "to be expected."

"You are pleased on that account?"

"Very."

"That is rewarding news."

"I doubt that she will break—her mind refuses to reach the pinnacle of no return."

"Yes, as I figured. Miria's intellect is vast—a great curse to her." Isley pulls Priscilla up on his lap, as the awakened being—innocent in looks, cuddles deep within his arms.

Rigardo sends him a derisive snort, "Look at you."

"Hmm?" Isley returns his cool look.

"Amazing. You treat her like a child."

"She is. Her mind is fragile." Isley gently reaches up to push aside the dull strands that blocks her face, and half dreamily eyes. She suddenly looks up at Rigardo with wide eyes, and is frightened. She further squirms into Isley's lap.

"Come on; let's get you over to Raki." Isley tells her, a soothing voice that even Rigardo is sent to raising his dark brow in half surprise.

Isley motions Raki over, who is over by the window, watching the snow and the threatening storm. The boy turns immediately to hear his mentor's call.

When the boy reaches to Priscilla, the young woman squeals in delight, and runs past Raki, to stand by the window. She points at the snow, clearly wanting to enjoy the delights of the falling cold. Priscilla hurriedly steals to the door, opening it so wide that the snow blasts into her face, and her delightful shriek invites Raki to join her. She sees that the boy is close, her hand clamps down tightly to his.

Raki looks back at Isley with a sheepish expression.

Rigardo turns away, slightly amused and bewildered.

It's going to be a long night.

---


	5. Chapter 5: foreplay advanced

A/N: Those are invaluable tips for future chapters, my only reviewer. Much obliged.

For your first tip: I am not going to reveal that yet, until it's ready. But rest assured, it'll be mentioned.

2nd tip: punctuations: I'll give it a good re-read again, for future chapters. I find myself liking the long sentences. It's my way of making it flow. I dislike frequent short clipped sentences. I think, it may be a stylistic issue and personal taste. I started writing this for elegiac and wild poetic images-- not having a plot in my head. I'll tighten the sentences for you, for easier reading. Can't promise that I won't be making small errors in the future. Thanks for having the courage to say something.

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**Rigald & Miria:**

**---**

Too much. _Too much._ It's what's going on in her head as she tries to get ahead, get further, faster and strengthen the ever-growing velocity. The calming of the storm's chill has gone and left them with nothing more than a blanket of immaculate snow—their deep footprints impress haphazard patterns in their battle wake. And when she's got herself between a rock and hard place—him being that hard place, her lungs burst, as if it's been knocked out from under her. Rigardo pulls her tighter against his chest, as he secures his steely arms around her deceptively frail body.

His lips graze, tantalizingly slow against her skin. She half heartedly attempts a small struggle, but bites her lip as she's pushed up against his solid frame. Miria's eyes flicker close against the biting cold. The swirl of blue and white smoke--clouds puffing from their breaths fill like a melting balm in the atmosphere, drifting above, haloing them in temporal obscurity. The claymore's focus is blurred, surrenders to feel the hot caress of his lips.

"Had enough?" He asks, his fingers pull at the leather ropes around her wrist and sword hilt, the ropes that bind her to him—they fall like a coiling snake, slowly towards the deep snow. Her lips parts under the melting heat, as he takes her chin to raise it towards his open mouth. Miria tastes him. It's not the first time, but each and every time, she shakes, feels a weakening in her knees. She understands this is between death and an infatuated yearning—he could kill her with one fatal strike—and he could also give her more in life as he sucks her tongue into his mouth.

She trembles in silence, tolerates his strong fingers at her neck—his forefinger grazing, thumb at the base of her throat. Just those soft touches to send her over the brink of confusion; her sex is dead to the world, dead, but her inner yoma is creeping in response like a hungry child, in need of nourishment.

He lifts her into his arms. How easily she succumbs into them, and how easily she falls into the easy manner of his dark brutish seduction. When he climbs back into the house, leaving a trail of deep footprints, Miria's sword is left behind, buried within the white mantle.

It is dark inside the room, where he usually takes her, and the hushness of the atmosphere makes her breathe low, afraid of what he would hear.

"I thought you were going to touch me here," he tells her as he pulls away her claymore armour—not to see her naked in the darkness, but to feel the contours of her body with his growing fluctuating power. His hand moves her fingers over his chest, where now, naked against her palm. She trembles against his lips.

Miria slides into position—hating herself, trembles with the knowledge that she can survive this, because he won't kill her. Rigardo is good at this, but her mental prowesses can provisionally freeze the rise of her awakening powers. It's her aptitude to phantom: to cause a tiny juncture of modification where her inner yoma instinctively attaches to where it wills; while yoma's itself have no thought, a slight change where it synapses and fasten to-- as a rule--flowering the process of awakening. Instead, she disguises like the ghost of presence, even as Rigardo's hands alter slightly. She feels the fur and the muscles rippling beneath as his thighs hoist her up; and above her, _over her_. She spreads her thighs for him, and in place of what she expects, the crack of his growing muscle and flesh stills. The scent of quiet permeates the air with his feral lust; the smell of sex between them is the rise of his powerful yoki and her dormant one.

In the darkness, his sharp nails doesn't puncture her skin where it will cause her to scream, cause her nerves to tighten, and fire the inner sanction of charity to minimize. Instead, he breathes hard above her, poised like a darkened omen with his hips against hers. Her groin pulsing like two heartbeats as she feels the edge of something hard—growing in size and strength; she doesn't fear this, nothing fears her more than to awaken wholly in damned abandonment, betraying her humanity.

In place of what's customary between their joining, he pulls her head closer, grips her hair into a bundle betwixt his furred and sharp fingers. He breathes into her partially open mouth, until she moans, fully opens them to welcome his demanding feral kiss, endures the sharp fangs against her lips, against her tongue. There--it punctures until she tastes the bitter flow of metallic blood, not fully human, not fully anything that's ever been sweet. It makes her wonder why he pursues this angle, instead of driving her to the precipice of awakening.

It is, frightening. _This._

Where he's not taking her like a savage beast, where she can selfishly take in the act without dying. To live another day and find a way to trounce him. But this, where he's tender without reason, makes her suck in her breath as he steadies and braces her hips and ass against his, pulling her thighs up along the length of his body.

She's left there in the darkness; her head lolls over as he releases her to take her naked leg over his shoulder and suck slowly between her thighs, suck along the inner flesh of leg. She is still smooth there, like a young human female's taut skin, where the flesh-torn burns have not marred them. Miria grabs hold of his corded muscled arm—hardened and taut against her sweat-cold palm, gripping hard enough when he takes his hot tongue and tastes her. There is no pain. But this—this is more painful than the sharpest wound he could ever give her. This—_this makes her scream. _Her ears betray her as she releases a ragged cry of defeat, shuddering into his ministrations.

Where she would normally phase in and out, his fangs and nails clamp tightly down upon her sex, her hips, and waist; she quivers like a pulled and released string, quivering fiercely into him. And she's left panting hard when she feels the rise of her awakening powers shift and churn within, the manifestation of her skin and blood bubble and the nerves stretch like a burning extended cord.

"Rigardo!" She warns. Her eyes are wide in the darkness, her breath hissing through her teeth. The flat of her hand pressing and fingers spread out against his naked furred chest, the thudding of his heartbeat pulsing loud and vibrating against her hand. He stops only to give her satisfied growl—_of a lion's triumphant sound_.

--

**Raki & Isley:**

**--**

Isley looks at his ward, who is bundled up in the warmest wools and furs, is warmed by the blazing fire behind them. They had found a nice, cozier cave with no distractions. Even Priscilla is full tonight and hasn't been much of a nuisance with her constant hunger pangs. She sleeps easily next to the fire, her blankets pulled up close to her neck. She could have easily slept nude and it wouldn't have made any difference. To Raki, however, it still made the boy uneasy to surround himself with two nude awakened beings. But—he didn't know that.

"Are you warm enough?" Isley asks, his hand over his knee as his leg is propped up. His back is against the cave's solid wall, and the shadows are lengthy when the fire flickers and crackles.

"I'm good." Raki nods, and Isley notices that his eyes stray to his sword.

"Not tonight." Isley tells him.

"No," Raki shakes his head, "I wasn't going to ask you to practice with me, I wanted to know something…," he pauses and looks up at him, …. "—about Rigardo."

"My second in command?"

"Yes, what," Raki's brows furrow, "What army are you two speaking about?"

"Rest easy, we're not going to fight against the claymores." Isley tells him, which is partially true. If the claymores didn't get in the way of their fight between the Empress of the South and the child-like Riful of the West, then there would be nothing to fear that Raki's friend Clare would get into the battle, "However, it's not up to me, if we so happen to meet up with them."

He watches Raki's expression, and after a moment, Raki understands. He sees the slow nod of understanding, "yes, Isley, I just, I need to get to Clare, to warn her away."

Isley could almost laugh, "Really? A claymore wanting to be warned away?"

Raki's eyes are full of fire when he next meets Isley's cool stare, "Yes, she would do this for me! She just couldn't leave me, she promised me…"

"A promise from a claymore?" Isley asks in the quiet cool evening, listening only to their conversation, the slow breathing of Priscilla's deep and undisturbed sleep and the crackling wood against the licking flame.

"I believe you, then," Isley consents, notices the fidgety manner in which Raki shows agitation and nervousness. He doesn't want to alarm the boy's highly sensitive nature, not while Priscilla is asleep for once—without nightmares and blubbering out words of her dead family.

--

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End file.
